Atlases

Tell me you don’t love the digital age where there’s a map that talks to you through your phone. I can get directions any time—walking, biking, driving—through apps like Google Maps. The Waze app informs me about traffic and construction all on the same phone. I love a map. But if I’m not driving, I want a fun map. Here are a few mapping websites to inspire your writing.

Atlas Obscura. This website has stories, maps, cultural information—just everything. Click on the site and explore things you never knew, you never knew. There are thousands of locations, and you can find information about many unusual things. Users can share their travel stories and add to the information on the site. Their current map has 23,000 clickable sites to view.

For a membership fee, starting as low as $5 a month, you can join in on virtual experiences. One glance showed me cooking classes, an event at the New York Transit Museum, medieval tarot, and how to send messages like historic spies. They also have courses. Lock-picking was up this week for those mystery/spy thriller writers out there. The courses have a fee.

If you are looking for information, check out the Stories section. Users with various areas of expertise write the posts. There’s also a podcast, a newsletter, and travel opportunities to have the real-life experiences of your characters or for research (Yeah, it’s research. LOL).

I’m a sucker for abandoned places. Each has a story, and I want to hear it. If you do too, check out Abandoned Places. This site has a blog and photos of neglected places all over the globe. There isn’t a ton on the site. But you can filter by “abandoned bunker” if you need information about that plot bunny.

I also found a site called Opacity. This site has photos and blog posts of places near and far. (I even found one for a spot two hours for me. Road Trip!) The site has about two hundred plus locations, each with photos and a description. Check out the historical information and the detailed photos. The author of the site has a few books available with his research and pictures.

My favorite show, The Umbrella Academy, inspired my last atlas entry. The characters stopped at a roadside attraction in their travels—a giant ball of twine. Check out Roadside America for some interesting stops on your travels this summer. Click on the map to see all the attractions in one state. The map is zoomable, and each pin has a pop-up with the name of the attraction. The Apple Store has a mobile app for the site.

If you need to go beyond Map Quest and Google Satellite no longer thrills you, try one of these atlas sites and be inspired.

 

Dictionaries

 

 

The internet has thousands of dictionaries, whether it be regular old definitions to foreign languages to slang. Today I’m going to highlight a couple of unique sites for dictionary purposes.

The reverse dictionary is a handy resource when you can’t remember a word for a particular phrase. Basically, the dictionary asks for the definition to find the word. Let’s say you’ve written “uncomfortably moist.” (hee hee) The dictionary will provide you with several less-squeegee choices such as clammy or dank. You can click on the suggestions to get a definition and find related words.

I have a paper one of these puppies. It’s 2000 pages. An online resource is so much better. As writers, we want to choose the best word to convey our ideas in the shortest phrasing possible. This resource is incalculably helpful.

The Urban Dictionary is a resource for slang. This dictionary can help writers find the correct terms for partners, drugs, hip phrases, and the like. Authors writing for teen audiences might find all those terms “the young people are using” here.

The pages start you off with a post about a phrase or a word. You can search alphabetically for words and phrases. If you have a unique definition for a word, you can add it to the dictionary by submitting an entry. From this resource, I learned about “snowplow moms” women who push away all their kids’ problems for them. I also learned about “leaf blower personalities” people who make their messy problems everyone else’s problems. What great terms!

For the poets out there, try out the Rhyming dictionary. This site will match your entries with words that rhyme. It will also find near-rhymes, homophones, a variety of thesaurus references (synonyms, antonyms), and similar-sounding words for your lyrics, poetry, or whatever. It can search Shakespeare and quotations for your word. Advances searches will give parts of speech, syllables, and meter.

Last, just for fun is Strange and Unusual references. This site has more than dictionaries for your reading pleasure. Included on this site are all or no vowel words (great for Scrabble), one-letter words, and magical words. Some books can be viewed on the site. Some links take you to a bookseller. Either way, it’s super fun.

I planned to do a section on thesauruses as well. But as we already did One Stop for Writers, we’ve covered the cool/unusual thesauruses.

 

Reference

It’s July which means I’ll continue to do these one-off apps on the blog. Last summer, I blogged about social media. The year before, I posted sites about book lists, list-serves, and the sort. (We were locked down and searching for good reads.)

This year, I’m hitting the reference section. It’s unbelievably easy to find this material on the internet. Dictionary, thesauruses, and the like abound.

Such as

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

Thesauruses

Wikipedia

Bartlett quotes (Apple as an app for it, too.)

Google Maps

Farmer’s Almanac

Refseek has a wide variety of source and reference material.

Basically, any reference material and research topics can be found with a simple search.

I discovered a few writer-specific reference sites I’d like to share with more details. Stay tuned in July for some interesting, silly information.

 

 

 

My Favorites

People ask me all the time, “How can you use so many apps in your writing?”

Spoiler, I don’t.

I only use a few of these apps from the blog. I research each one before I post, to see if it will work for my writing. But honestly, I have my favorites. (Just don’t tell the other apps. We don’t want any jealousy.)

Yes, this will be a “lousy clip show” post. But as it is a holiday weekend, I hope you will forgive me.

My first favorite is Google Keep. It was one of the first apps in the blog. I use it almost daily. The ease of making notes and then having them available from the cloud across devices is invaluable. I can add checklists, colors, pictures, and more. I use it for To-Do lists, authory tasks, grocery lists, and a quick note with voice recognition to jot down a writing idea. For me, it doesn’t get much better than this simple app. Here are the links to my original posts: What is it, How-To, For Authors.

My next favorite for project planning is still Trello. The app has changed a bit from when I first blogged two years ago. It still has great ways to organize projects and stay connected with teammates (co-writers and editors). I use the app to organize this blog and my reading one. I map out the year of posts and can move things around easily. At this point in my career, I only need a basic project manager. Someday, I might need to move up, but for now, Trello works. Here are the links to the original posts: What is it, How-To, For Authors.

My favorite writing program is still Scrivener. I draft everything (including this post) in the program. Moving files is so easy. Seeing the story in one long chain helps me in plotting and drafting. I have both blogs on there and all my “started” novels. Honestly, I don’t use all their bells and whistles. I realize the app can have a learning curve, but for my use, it’s perfect. I will be honest, Dabble is a close second as my go-to drafting program. Since I’ve already paid for Scrivener and it’s cheaper, I’m sticking with it. Here are the links to the updated posts on Scrivener: One and Two. The version two posts are here.

For a story bible, I’m still sticking with OneNote, more for ease of use and basic amenities than anything else. I find other apps like One Stop for Writers and Aeon Timeline too cumbersome for my needs. I like that OneNote attaches to my Word draft, and I can access it easily. It can sit right next to the doc on my way-too-big monitor and constantly remind me that Cole’s eyes are blue. (Are they blue? Let me check.) Here are my posts on OneNote: What is it, How-To, For Authors.

The last I’ll mention is Blogger. I did the post in response to a few fellow authors at The Wild Rose Press asking about the app. I’m glad I did. The app perfectly organizes my material and shows me stats. I can customize the look with a few clicks. WordPress is nice for a blog, but I love the click-and-go aspect of Blogger. Plus, I can still import the posts to my WordPress website when needed. Here are the links to my Blogger posts: What is it, How-To, For Authors.

One more slight indulgence. I teach classes for all the apps on my blog. I can do a Zoom or in-person for groups and one-on-one if you need it. I’ve been a computer teacher for over twenty years, and I keep up to date on apps than can be useful in our writing careers. Contact me at ginnyfrost@ginnyfrost.com

Thanks for sticking with me on this clip post.